SOLICITOR'S MALPRACTICE EXPOSED

Probing investigation - Lancaster was exposed by BBC Inside Out

We reveal how David Lancaster, a senior defence solicitor, was sentenced to three years in prison following a BBC Inside Out undercover investigation.

Inside Out secretly filmed Lancaster helping a client to fabricate lies to tell in court.

When Lancaster was confronted by the BBC with the results of the investigation, he said that he had done nothing wrong.

As a result of Inside Out's secret filming, David Lancaster was convicted of attempting to incite an undercover reporter to pervert the course of justice.

During the court hearing Judge Graham Cottle said that the former Warner, Goodman and Streat partner had broken " every rule in the book".

The judge also said that Lancaster had given "a breathtaking display of unprofessional conduct".

The sting

Inside Out began its investigation in 2004 when an undercover journalist went to ask David Lancaster for legal advice.

Undercover evidence - Inside Out's sting was a success

Our researcher's cover story was that he had been arrested for supplying cocaine.

David Lancaster gave our undercover client advice on how to persuade the main witness in his case not to give evidence against him.

Inside Out presenter Chris Packham recalls the scenario:

"Our researcher told the solicitor that he had sold the drugs.

"Despite this admission, Mr Lancaster went on to invent stories which would explain away the incriminating evidence.

"He also suggested that the researcher's friends should visit a prosecution witness to persuade him to change his story."

The Portsmouth-based solicitor was a partner with Warner Goodman and Streat, and was subsequently sacked following the BBC allegations.

Erroneous stories

During the secretly filmed interview, the BBC researcher said that the police had taken some of his cash for forensic tests.

He told Mr Lancaster this could be incriminating, as the bank notes might have the drug buyer's fingerprints on them.

Mr Lancaster said that he had come up with an innocent reason to explain the fingerprints.

"If his prints are on them, it can't be as woolly as 'I loaned the money'. That sounds so limp-wristed and crap that a jury would say 'I don't believe that'."

David Lancaster

The researcher suggested he might have owed the money, but this explanation was dismissed by the solicitor.

Mr Lancaster said, "If his prints are on them, it can't be as woolly as 'I loaned the money'.

"That sounds so limp-wristed and crap that a jury would say 'I don't believe that'."

The solicitor then went on to suggest an alternative story to tell in court:

"You can say that you had a £50 note that you asked him to change."

Mr Lancaster, 54, also had an explanation for why the researcher's fingerprints might be on the wrap of cocaine:

Warner Goodman and Streat disassociated themselves from Lancaster

"You could say that at the time he changed the 50 quid for me, he showed me this cocaine wrap and I was horrified.

"I daren't do drugs even if I wanted to because if I did, I'd lose my job, and I gave it straight back to him."

The solicitor even came up with the exact words the researcher's friends could use to persuade the main prosecution witness to drop his evidence.

"Do you really want to send him to prison for giving it to you, because he will go to prison?

"All you've got to do is say well, I think I was mistaken, I can't be sure if it was him. I can't remember," he said.

Lancaster defends reputation

At the time Warner Goodman and Streat said that the advice was in clear breach of Mr Lancaster's duties as both a solicitor and an officer of the court.

The company reported him to the Law Society and said:

"We wish to reassure our clients and the public in general that the firm's reputation has been founded upon honesty and integrity. This has been the cornerstone of our business for more than 150 years".

Mr Lancaster said that he had doubts about the story presented by the BBC reporter:

"In my 25 years as a lawyer my focus has been on ensuring justice is done and that those who have committed offences are properly punished and those that have been wrongly accused are helped through the court process.

"To see a senior member of the profession behaving like this undermines everything that a far greater number of solicitors do properly and in the interests of justice."

Tony Edwards

"In initial discussions with any potential client, my first duty is to ensure that the instructions I am given are clear and that the person understands what is happening to them.

"The undercover reporter was giving me mixed messages and his story did not fully make sense and, for that reason, I explored every possible option and scenario with him.

"I fully accept that some of the remarks reported may have seemed inappropriate in isolation."

"At all times during my time with the reporter I was trying to assist someone who led me to believe they had come into my office for help at a time of need.

"I gained no benefit or fees from the short time I spent with him, which was late in a very busy day in the hectic run-up to Christmas."

Criminal actions

At the time of the original Inside Out filming, senior lawyers condemned Mr Lancaster's behaviour as unethical.

Leading criminal lawyer Tony Edwards said:

"My reaction to this tape is deeply depressing because there are solicitors up and down the country doing a demanding job well and with courage.

"He was told the client had supplied drugs and yet he then went and did a substantial interview to explain how each piece of evidence might be explained away.

"He said he should not be putting words into the mouth of the client but that is precisely what he appears to do."

Judge Robert Pryor, QC, said: "I'm shocked. I don't know this solicitor and he may be able to say something about it which puts it in a completely different light.

"But on the face of it, if this were a real case - and there's no reason to suppose the solicitor thought it was anything else - it's a flagrant breach of the rules of professional conduct and probably a criminal offence as well in that it involves perverting the course of justice and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

"If this is happening elsewhere, we have a really big problem sorting it out."

Sir Charles Pollard

"Every day magistrates, judges and juries are trying to make up their mind whether people are telling the truth or not and they are entitled to assume that the witness who is giving his evidence, is giving his own evidence.

"He may have invented lies, but they are his own lies. If he is telling lies and putting forward a story which is made more plausible by the perverted use of the lawyer's knowledge and experience, then the job of the court becomes very much more difficult, if not impossible."

Sir Charles Pollard, former Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, described Mr Lancaster's behaviour as appalling.

He said, "What is shown in this film is so serious that I think judges, lawyers, the police, government ministers, policy makers - everyone who has a role to play in the criminal justice system - needs to see this because if this is happening elsewhere, we have a really big problem sorting it out."

What happened next?

David Lancaster appeared in court and was sentenced to three years imprisonment in October 2006 as a result of Inside Out's undercover filming.

Judge Cottle said:

"It follows that if any member of the legal profession engages in behaviour that brings the system into disrepute, he threatens the deserved reputation of the criminal justice system, and this necessarily has an impact on fellow professionals.

"Your behaviour in this case totally undermines that deserved reputation."

Web links

BBC News - Solicitor jailed after BBC probe
BBC Crime - The Law
Onelife: Legal
Warner Goodman and Streat
The Law Society
Thames Valley Police
Magistrates Association
The Law Commission

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